The Gallery Phase 2: Innovation catalyst for the academic and business communities

Forerunners begin development of circular innovation centre on the University of Twente Campus.

Plans for The Gallery Phase 2 were presented during the KOP 500 Business Event in Deventer this week. This building complex on the university campus, currently empty, is being transformed by the University of Twente, Asito, Cisco, Herstructureringsmaatschappij Overijssel (HMO), Novel-T and BLOC into an innovation centre that will link the academic and business communities. Businesses (corporates, startups, SMEs), students and academics will work together in an open and dynamic environment to meet the social challenges of the future.

Innovation- and community-driven

The Gallery is a large building complex at the entrance to the University of Twente Campus. The first section of The Gallery has already been transformed into an ‘ecosystem’ in which startups can accelerate their business. The University of Twente, Asito, Cisco, HMO, Novel-T and BLOC are now rolling up their sleeves for Phase 2: the extended, empty complex at the entrance to the campus. Together they will be setting up innovation programmes in the coming period, guided by the university motto: ‘High Tech, Human Touch’. The aim of these programmes is that businesses, students and academics can together develop, test and apply solutions to major social challenges, aided by the exponential growth of technological possibilities. The partners will not be working alongside each other, but with each other. The Gallery Phase 2 will be configured so as to provide maximum support for the innovation processes, including rooms for ideation, bootcamps, concept development, prototyping and business development. There will be large, open rooms for conferences, lectures and workshops as well as hangouts, a coffee bar and terraces. What’s more, the building environment must be flexible enough for it to keep pace with and change in line with user requirements. The users of the building will be supported here by a service-oriented digital infrastructure and an extensive package of services from which they themselves can choose what they need. The businesses, students and academics taking part in the innovation programmes will all become ‘members’ of The Gallery. This means that they will not only contribute to the innovation programmes but also handle the programming and organization. They will become temporary owners of their innovation environment.

Circularity Center Twente

The development of the complex is an innovation programme in itself. Driven by the goal of contributing to the circular economy, the partners aim to realize The Gallery Phase 2 as the Circularity Center Twente. As many materials as possible will be reused for the building development. The complex itself will be stripped and new elements such as stairs and facades will be printed using the demolition material. What’s more, everything will be designed and developed for further reuse. Besides this, new practice-based, circular business models will be created and applied. One part of this approach is to develop the complex in the form of a Building as a Service. This means that not only facilities such as lighting, power and heating are supplied as services, but even features like the interior, the installations and the (energy-generating) facades. And when The Gallery Phase 2 opens, it should achieve maximum self-sufficiency as regards factors like food and energy. The plans for the Circularity Center were presented to Provincial Executive member Eddy van Hijum during the KOP 500 event.

Start. Now.

The Gallery Phase 2 will open in 2020. But the innovation programme is already underway. The University of Twente, Asito, Cisco, HMO, Novel-T and BLOC aim to collaborate here with companies and institutes that can contribute to the circular development of the complex. To register, go to www.thegallery2.nl.